Editing Britbongsteros (section)

===The mosquitoes, a muffin and Mokele-mbembe===
We are politely told that there is an issue in Africa (We will need that map soon). In the copper mines of Northern Rhodesia (the top of the blue bit at the bottom of Africa - Zambia in our now extremely boring world) there is a problem. A big problem. Something has been eating the miners. Local legend speaks of an enormous beast that's risen from the depths of lake Tanganyika. It's bigger than a bolo and it's eating a hell of a lot of people.

:''>who's telling us this?'' 
We are aboard the HMS Ark Royal on our way to Durban. It's a long voyage and our captain (played by the DM) is reading us our sealed orders (signed by the privy council). Kill or capture it.

Our sealed orders even with all the signatures, the pre-amble and everything else we'd expect are a good bit longer than that.

:"As you will note, as at least two of you can read, bordering Lake Tanganikya is the Belgian republic of Congo. We are given to understand that the local Zyoba people may be more sympathetic to British rule than to that of the Belgians. Ensure that their humanitarian concerns are taken into account. 
:The party look at each other. "Wat?"
:Wizard: "I think that means we are meant to conquer it."
:Party: "Aaah"

:''>why on earth might anyone the Congo?'' 
Well it's full of natural resources, diamonds, and a lovely amount of other things. At the moment it's also full of Belgians.
:''>why are copper mines important?''
Copper is wonderful stuff. It's malleable and easily turned into things. It's used in electrics and industrial machinery. Especially in things like boilers and engines - what are battleships powered by? 

:''>Belgians'' 
I think we have talked about Belgians before a bit. Belgians are dragons. At least a few of them are. Their ruler is chosen by dint of who is the largest of the drakes. The current King Leopold I-VI (having eaten his five predecessors he gets their numbers too) is understood to be around 50 yards long. However dragons don't seem to do terribly well in Africa - tending to die to malaria, sleeping sickness, or yellow fever pretty fast so we can expect much smaller and more vigorous dragons with faster immune systems down there.

Either way though, the Belgians probably won't look too kindly on us messing around in their territory and we are in theory allied to them.

:''>African wildlife'' 
Much as you'd expect, except there's still plenty of pre-historic megafauna roaming around and more than a few dinosaurs. So if there's something big enough to have scared the tribes of people, gorilla men, and other assorted folk in the area away from those mines, it must be terrifying.

By the way, as is traditional, I'm sorry in advance Belgium, Africa, and any other nationalities we might meet. Well, not really, but you have to say this sort of thing nowadays. 

:''>The Congo''
The Belgian dragons weren't actually very bothered about sub Saharan Africa (it being full of disease and horribleness as far as they were concerned), but it's also in addition to those natural resources, full of large, interestingly tasty mega fauna.  So Leopold I-VI financed his own free state, (As opposed to a Belgian one) and we have heard their methods of social control are... unusual. 

Ok I think that's all the fluff we need for now.

The voyage is fairly uneventful aside from one small interlude where we all went swimming (quite common for sailors to do this in tropical waters with a sail weighted appropriately to make a kind of pool). The bard tried talking to dolphins.
:Can dolphins talk? 
:>I dunno. Want to try? 
:Sure! "Hello flipper!" 
:>roll for it 
:>rolls
:>They think you're a twat.

We also had an equator crossing ceremony which, when it was all explained that we slimy pollywogs would go through the initiation ceremony, Cruella declined saying enigmatically that she was a trusty, Royal, diamond shellback already. She also had the tattoo.
:>what the fuck are you talking about Aldous?
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line-crossing_ceremony Line-crossing_ceremony]

It was discovered that 'wogs (yes that's appropriate here) have to somehow interrogate a shellback by
:>cracking eggs on them 
:Cruella: "...no."
:>pouring aftershave on their heads 
:Cruella: "That sounds ok..."
:>Tying them up 
:Cruella: "Later."

The rest of us had a great time chasing folk about and the Navvie got quite into it, he and Angus having a competition to see who could egg the most sailors.
No one mentioned that the wogs are made very aware that it will be much harder on them if they do anything like this. Later after being pelted with a lot of rotten fruit and being made to kiss the royal babies belly coated in axle grease we proceeded onward. For once no one got murdered and no cosmic horror shat demonic hordes of flesh eating explosion-beetles.

It was noted that the wizard (being attuned to iron on some deep level) went a bit funny for a while when we crossed the equator and started speaking backwards for a bit. 

Sometime later we arrive in Durban. It should be about summer in bongland so it's winter here. It's not too bad actually and the locals are a mix of Europeans of all flavours and Arabs of various degrees of bonkers. Having dropped in by Crazy [[Hassan]]'s camels & other livestock we are just about prepared for our trip north. We can take the train as far as the line has built - n.b. The Cape to Cairo line is being built in Britbongsteros. That it doesn't exist in reality is one of the sadnesses of the end of empire and the second world war as it would have done amazing things. I promise as someone with deep (actual) connections to Rhodesia I won't cry too much about this.

We at least get a lift to Kapiri Mposhi 

'''And then the thread died and I didn't learn there even was a thread until weeks later. Fuck me.'''